"If all of mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
-John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1869

The other day I was watching one of those strange food shows where some guy goes to some exotic place and eats good that most Americans wouldn't. This show happened to be set in Saudi Arabia. During the course of the show, the host explained some of the things that the locals do for fun. Since it's an oil-rich nation, the gasoline costs less than $1 per gallon. Because of this, it is no problem for people to go riding over sand dunes in off-road vehicles.

As I watched this, at first I was outraged to see these people wasting gasoline when it costs so much here. I also felt a little bit hypocritical because I knew for so long that Americans had done the same things.

Then, as I thought about it more, my feelings changed. I realized that these people were using the natural resources of their country for the benefit of their people. If they had the resources to either produce or to purchase what they wanted, then I had no right to say that they could not use those resources in whatever way they saw fit.

Knowing this, I turned my thoughts to my own culture and realized that if Americans have the ability to produce and or buy food products to feed our people, then there is no problem whatsoever if I want to go to McDonald's to buy a hamburger and only eat half of it while there are people in this world that are starving.

Some people would say that there is a difference between gasoline and food, but I say that there is not. If the price of gasoline in America were to double tomorrow, then that would cause so many people here to be unable to afford to go to work. That would then cause them to be unable to purchase food.

If the United States is going to be held morally responsible for the feeding of other nations in the world because we have the ability to grow food, then OPEC nations should be held morally accountable for providing fuel assistance to countries as well.